Darpa Alpha

incorrect, Marte—did bomb us. The kid just thought it was ’Frisco instead of Pearl Harbor. But there was a bombing attack.”

“Douglas, I don’t want to be rude, but I’m busy. The story is there’s no story. Nothing happened. Nothing. Bad news source. Nada.” She paused. “I hear traffic. Why aren’t you calling from home? Afraid your new wife’ll find out?”

“Thanks, Marte,” he told her. “Take care.”

She hung up.

Bitch. Well, not really a bitch, but — a “bad news source”?

Douglas Freeman gleaned every headline in the 7-Eleven, including those in USA Today, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and La Opinion. Nada.

He went down to the beach and began his morning run. He hated jogging in sand but knew it increased his workout by a factor of two to three and tempered his calf muscles until they were as hard as the new hagfish and Kevlar bulletproof vests he’d championed. As he pounded up and down the dunes, he was confident he’d give any drill instructor anywhere a run for his money—with full modern combat pack of fifty to seventy pounds, which just happened to be the same amount of weight as the Roman legionnaires had carried on their twenty-mile-a-day marches. As usual when jogging, he imagined that he was in a history-making race, like Philippides who ran the twenty-six miles from Marathon to Athens to tell the Athenians to hold fast, that their army under General Miltiades, who had just whipped the Persians, was now on its way back to save Athens itself, which it did. Of course Philippides had collapsed and died the second after he’d delivered the fateful message.

By the time he’d reached home, Freeman was in full sweat.

“Sweetie, I’m home.”

“I can smell.”

Ouch. Maybe she would cut him off for a month?

“Sorry, I know I must pong.”

“Must what?” she asked sharply.

“Pong.”

“Is that—” There was a pause, and he thought he heard a stifled laugh, and seized the opportunity.

“Yes, pong — means to really smell bad. An Aussie or Brit word. Not sure which. Aussie Lewis used to use it a lot. Guess I picked it up from him.” There was another long pause, and she appeared at the door in a smart fall suit of variegated autumnal tones: nothing too gauche but one that showed her ample bustline to best advantage.

“Where are you off to?” asked the general, a little cap-in-hand, a man who had once commanded thousands of men in the field, and the commander who had electrified America with his momentous “U-turn battle” against the Siberian Sixth Armored Corps during the U.S.-led U.N. “peacekeeping action” in the Transbaikal.

“I’m going out,” she said, checking her reflection in the hall mirror. “I told you last week. Linda Rushmein is giving a bridal shower for her niece, Julia.”

“Rushmein,” mused Freeman. “As in ‘rush mein dinner, mein Herr?’”

Margaret didn’t smile. “The shower will be later in the day but Linda’s asked me to help with the preparations. I won’t be back till late. She’s coming to pick me up.”

“That’s a long drive,” Freeman noted.

“Don’t wait up for me,” she said.

“Of course I will.”

“I can’t imagine why. I’ll be tired.”

“Then I’ll run you a hot bath,” Freeman said congenially.

She had put on gold, dolphin-shaped earrings. Freeman idly recalled that dolphins were the symbols of submariners. It got him thinking that perhaps this nonstory about a DARPA facility being attacked had to do with the new submarine base in Alaska. It might be a bit of a stretch, he thought, but a news source could say “West Coast” and still mean Alaska.

“You can stay up for me if you want,” said Margaret, “but I’m going straight to bed.”

“That’s what I mean,” he said cheekily, slipping off his jogging shoes. “I’ll be up!”

“Don’t be vulgar, Douglas.” She straightened her suit jacket, crimped her hair, then looked straight at him. “You’re famous, I’m told, for your commando raids and command of detail, meticulous planning, and concern for your troops. Well, through no fault of your own, you’ve been pushed into retirement by what Linda tells me is the iPod generation in the Pentagon. And I’m sorry for that, and I’ll try my best to be a good, loyal wife, but I’m serious, Douglas, I don’t want you flirting with other women. It’s something I abhor in men who are married and—”

“Flirting?” he interjected. “Margaret, I was thinking of you. I just thought it would be imprudent to be calling Marte Price from home. I’d probably feel the same if you had reason, however sound, to call an old beau, someone you had known—”

“Slept with, you mean, like you did with that tart.”

“That was before I met you — well, I mean, really got to know you after Catherine’s death. For Heaven’s sake, Margaret, get a grip. You’re blowing this way out of proportion. Talk about making a mountain out of a molehill.”

“It’s the lie, Douglas. It’s not that you’re phoning your old tart.”

“I’ve asked you before. Please don’t refer to her like that.”

“It’s not that you’re phoning your old tart. It’s this pathetic 7-Eleven cover story. Linda Rushmein tells me that even amongst your enemies in the State Department, whom you’ve raked over the coals for being professional liars, you’re thought to be an honest man. But I caught you in one of your own lies.”

His blood pressure was shooting up, and his grim-jawed George C. Scott in Patton face was set in Defcon 2—the penultimate defense condition before outright war. “Linda Rushmouth should keep her mouth shut. I did not call people in the State Department professional liars. I said that they lied because most diplomats were paid to lie.”

“Oh, don’t be so tendentious. It’s the same thing.” She snatched her raincoat from the hall rack.

“All right, all right,” he began, “it was foolish of me not to tell you I’d be calling her. It’s just that I could see no good reason to tell you and get you all upset. It was wrong of me to do it. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

There was a horn bipping outside.

“That’ll be Linda,” said Margaret. “I have to go.”

“Can you leave a number where I can reach you? I always like to have a—”

She scribbled the number on the yellow Post-it pad on the hall table.

“I love you, you silly woman,” he called after her. “And tell Linda Rushmein to get a muzzle. And don’t let her drive you home if she’s had too many. Those Krauts like their suds!”

Shouldn’t have said that, oaf. He would have bawled out a subordinate for such boorishness. As he looked into the hall mirror, he rebuked himself. Now you’ve done it, Freeman. You might be the hero from way back in the Far East against the Siberian Sixth et al. but here in Monterey you’re facing a domestic court-martial for a damn fool tactical move.

He descended to the basement, opened the Rolodex file in the cabinet near his weights, and looked up Alaska — naval bases. Nothing rang a bell. Perhaps this nonstory CNN had broadcast before they’d been obviously sat upon by the heavies from the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, et al. didn’t have anything to do with a naval base at all but was about an air force, army, or marine base, with an unmarked “black box” DARPA facility nearby? The Rolodex listed one DARPA facility attached to Elmendorf, the big air force base adjacent to Anchorage, Alaska, as well as other bases down Canada’s adjoining West Coast. Turning on his computer, he did a Net search for all armed forces bases. But there were no reports, not even a suggestion of a B and E, only assurances that the government was doing a good job with your tax dollars.

He called the White House, asking to speak to National Security Adviser Eleanor Prenty, the only connection he had with the administration as per his contract. He had promised he’d call only on matters of national emergency. He was put on hold. Usually the presidential staff, like those at State, didn’t take kindly to Freeman; he